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Ahh... You can really tell that summer is on the way when, after several days of appalling weather (or, at least, appalling by my standards), that l'il 'ol sun suddenly bursts through the clouds to give you two days of beautiful weather. Yesterday was warm enough (30 degrees C) that I actually considered changing out of my jeans and long-sleeved shirt into a pair of shorts. Instead, I wound up in previously mentioned attire washing the white car (a Toyota Seeka) and my van (A Big Red thing that I'm still looking for a name for and of which recently smashed in the front passenger side in a car accident... I was thinking of calling it 'Elmo' but someone beat me to it with their car...). Which, really, isn't all that bad a way to spend an afternoon… dancing along to the 96fm Sunday Session (no adds for 3 hours!) and spraying people who dared give me funny looks for doing so with the hose. Today is almost as nice, but slightly cooler and I think the Freo Doctor is in instead of the Easterly we got up here yesterday. The Fremantle Doctor, for those not in the know, is our trade wind. It blows in from the ocean in the afternoon on hot days and brings some relief for the poor buggers without air conditioning.

In other news today, determined as I am to bring a bit of Australian trivia to the table, here you go: did you know that Australia actually once lost a Prime Minister? No, he wasn't assassinated, he wasn't kidnapped or anything like that – he just went for a swim one day and never came back. I think that says volumes about the place I call home – and exactly what the standard Aussie view on our politicians is (for another example of that, I shall refer you to the recent news of one of our ministers, a Mr. Peter Reith, who, by giving his tax-payer funded phone-card to his son, racked up an astounding $50000 worth of calls over 5 years) – what other country could just lose their highest-ranking government official? Could you see Bill Clinton going for a dip without several Secret Service men watching his every move? And, to top it off, if it did happen, could you see a municipal swimming pool being named after him after? Well, it happened here - the Harlod Hold Memorial Municipal Swimming Pool. Or rather, over East, but the principle's the same...

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